How to Ensure Email Deliverability

To comply with campus guidelines and maximize inbox delivery, contact your campus IT department or email system administrator before launching your survey. Taking this proactive step can help prevent messages from being blocked or marked as spam. When reaching out, be prepared to provide the information below to assist with email configuration and delivery.

SPF Requirement

SPF records are now required to help ensure reliable email delivery. Please add the following SPF record to your email server:

If you use SPF flattening or a third-party vendor to manage SPF records, please inform us. These services can prevent us from verifying the SPF record directly, and we will need to add an exception on our end.

Alternatives to Adding an SPF Record

If you are unable to update your SPF record, you may bypass this requirement by:

• Using wess@webebi.com as the “Reply-To” email address for your invitation and all reminder emails during survey setup.

• Whether your campus chooses to send the survey from an “.edu” address or from wess@webebi.com, you will still have full control over the “from” display name and the subject line. In students’ inboxes, unopened messages look identical regardless of which sending address is used. The only difference is visible after a student opens the email and closely reviews the sender details. Based on feedback from other campuses, most students do not examine that information closely.

  We have tested both options side by side, and the invitation emails appear exactly the same in the inbox prior to being opened.

Use our new Generate Single Survey Link feature to distribute your survey directly to students through your campus email system, text messaging, QR codes, your LMS, or any other platform you prefer.

We can provide a DKIM key upon request; however, this does not replace the requirement to add the SPF record.

Benchworks hosts its servers and software through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Our sending IP addresses are:

• 54.240.121.247

• 54.240.121.248

Your email system administrators can use this information to adjust spam filters or allowlist our IP or sending email address to help ensure successful delivery.

We also recommend monitoring your survey closely on launch day to identify any messages that were bounced or not delivered. If you experience any email deliverability issues, please contact support for assistance.

What is SPF?

The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email-authentication technique which is used to prevent spammers from sending messages on behalf of your domain. With SPF an organization can publish authorized mail servers. Together with the DMARC related information, this gives the receiver (or receiving systems) information on how trustworthy the origin of an email is. SPF is, just like DMARC, an email authentication technique that uses DNS (Domain Name Service). This gives you, as an email sender, the ability to specify which email servers are permitted to send email on behalf of your domain.

We need your IT to place our SPF on your server to ensure deliverability.  The SPF record should include the text:    "v=spf1 ip4:54.240.121.247 ip4:54.240.121.248"

What is DKIM?

DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) is an email authentication technique that allows the receiver to check that an email was indeed sent and authorized by the owner of that domain. This is done by giving the email a digital signature. This DKIM signature is a header that is added to the message and is secured with encryption.

Once the receiver (or receiving system) determines that an email is signed with a valid DKIM signature, it’s certain that parts of the email among which the message body and attachments haven’t been modified. Usually, DKIM signatures are not visible to end-users, the validation is done on a server level.

Implementing the DKIM standard will improve email deliverability. If you use a DKIM record together with DMARC (and even SPF) you can also protect your domain against malicious emails sent on behalf of your domains. Though, in practice these goals are achieved more effectively if you use the DKIM record together with DMARC (and even SPF). DMARC and DMARC Analyzer use both SPF and DKIM. Together they provide synergy and the best result for email security and deliverability.

DKIM is available upon request by contacting support. Please include the domain name (i.e. elentra.com, msu.edu, etc.) and we will generate a DKIM key for you and send it back to you via email.

The DNS server needs this text record published with the DKIM selector as the hostname, and the key as a single text record. It includes both quoted parts, and they have to be on one line, there is a space between them, not a return.

After you have successfully placed your DKIM key on your DNS server, please inform us by replying to the email that was sent to you. After you have successfully placed your DKIM key on your DNS server, please notify us by replying to the email that was sent to you. We will then verify the placement of the DKIM record and conduct tests from our end to ensure it has been correctly implemented. If our tests indicate that the DKIM key we have implemented matches the one on your side, we will send you a test email. If all tests are satisfactory, we can proceed with your survey.